


Where The Flame Turns Blue (in the morning i will sing)

by sying



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-12 16:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13551495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sying/pseuds/sying
Summary: The quiet of the hospital room with only the steady rhythm of the heart monitor and ventilator pump stands in sharp contrast with the way Kelly's world of fragile denial is currently crashing down around him.-A post 1x10 fic.





	Where The Flame Turns Blue (in the morning i will sing)

**Author's Note:**

> Repost.
> 
> Thanks to [Signe](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe) for the excellent and speedy beta.
> 
> Title taken from David Gray's _Flame Turns Blue_.

  
The quiet of the hospital room with only the steady rhythm of the heart monitor and ventilator pump stands in sharp contrast with the way Kelly's world of fragile denial is currently crashing down around him.

He's staring at Shay who's lying deathly still, her face pale between the patchwork of bruises and bandage, wires and tubes all around her, and he's struck dumb with the sudden realization that there are far worse things to lose than his job. It's such a simple thought, self-evident, that he feels like the world's biggest idiot.

He's been trying so hard to live his life as freely and easily as possible, his only dedication to the job, to saving lives. Living his life in such a headstrong way that, slowly but surely, he's been ruining his own life and that of those few people he really allows himself to genuinely care about.

Shay was right when she said he was fooling himself. In more ways than she probably even knew.

The possibility that he might lose her, really lose her and that the last memory they'll have of each other is how he let her down is nauseating and he has to sit down in a chair by the bed.

It's hard to look at her now but he makes himself and she looks so damn fragile.

" _This_ isn't you either," he says, remembering what she said to him not that long ago. To his own surprise it comes out a little angry and he grasps her hand, cold and small, squeezing lightly in silent apology.

The fact that she still believed that he could be, _is_ a better man than this, when it's become more and more difficult for himself to remember that, gives him some hope. He feels like maybe he wants that: to be the kind of man she thinks he is, more like the one he once was.

"Here's the deal," he says after a while, trying and failing to swallow away the lump that's been in his throat since the long hours ago when he first got the news. "I'm gonna get better, _be_ better but you'll have to, too."

He doesn't know how long he sits there until the weight of a strong hand falls on his shoulder. He looks up briefly to see the chief standing beside him. Anguish is written all over his face but he stands tall and unwavering as always.

The heart monitor beeps countless times through their stillness until the chief tells him it's time to go.

Kelly shakes his head, stubbornly. "I'm not leaving her alone like this."

"I'm staying until her family gets here," Boden says, his voice quiet but firm. "I've already sent Dawson home with her brother. Shay's going to need you two longer than just tonight, Kelly. So let Casey drive you home and go get some rest."

It's not until he gets up that he realizes that he's got his left hand clamped around his medal as if it were a lifeline. The memory of his mom putting the necklace around his neck on the morning of his first day at the fire academy comes back to him in full force. "To keep you safe," she'd said and he'd wanted to roll his eyes because he was young, still invulnerable and ignorant. But he'd seen the worry warring with pride in her eyes and held his tongue, hugged her instead.

He folds his fingers around it one more time, needing a moment to really feel the steely resolve deep inside him underneath the fear, and then takes off the necklace to place it gently in Leslie's hand. He leans in close to kiss an unmarred part of her cheek.

"I promise," he whispers in her ear. "Firefighter's honor."

She stays still.

"I need to talk to you," he tells Boden the second they're out of the room.

The chief looks at him and Kelly gets a creeping feeling that he already knows what's going on somehow. It's possible – Kelly's not been nearly as good at hiding things as he thought he was and the chief has an uncanny ability to just know.

"Tomorrow," Boden says decisively. "Right now, Matt's taking you home. Get some rest, think about what you're gonna say and then come see me tomorrow."

Some sort of understanding passes between him and Casey, who nods and starts steering Kelly down the hallway to the elevators.

 

* * *

 

They're quiet all the way home in Matt's car and Kelly stares out the window, sees nothing but Shay's face as his mind goes through scattered scenarios of what might happen.

When Casey follows him inside he's too exhausted to argue and send him away. They stand at the kitchen counter, not drinking their beers when Matt finally breaks the silence.

"Wanna tell me what's going on?" The question isn't a surprise, the gentle tone in his voice is.

And it would be easy to say no. No, now is not the time and Matt would probably accept it. Not gladly, but he would. But Kelly's been finding excuses for why it wasn't the time for so long now and this would be just another. Besides, he made Leslie a promise.

"Yeah," he says, eyes on his fingers peeling away at the label on his beer bottle.

"Dawson said Shay'd moved out."

"She did." He glances up to see Casey looking at him patiently, like he can wait all night for Kelly to explain. The thing is though, now that he's started this _Kelly_ can't. Even though he has no idea how to do it. So he decides to do what he resolved back at the hospital now that he still has the nerve; he goes upstairs and when he comes back down he throws all the blister packs he's gathered on the counter in front of a confused looking Matt.

He digs through the liner pocket of his jacket and produces another pack of pills.

"There's one more in my locker at the firehouse."

Casey's reading the name on the back of one of the packs and Kelly can tell the exact moment he realizes what they are.

"What the hell, Severide? How did you even get these?"

"Nobody you know, I swear." Because that's really what Matt is asking. If he had to tell him how he actually got these, he's not sure he could. Although he can't say why it feels more shameful than admitting to endangering Shay and Dawson's jobs, friendships, _lives_. It shouldn't but that's the way he's been lately. Kelly Severide: priorities fucked up.

"What are you taking them for?" And the way he's gearing up towards anger, his eyes hard on Kelly, he can tell Matt thinks he already knows the answer.

"When Andy—Back at that call, I fell and broke my neck. I got a pinched nerve because of it that needs surgery."

"Dammit, Kelly! I asked you what was going in and you said it was nothing." Matt takes a deep breath but his fists remain clenched at his side. "You're Squad. A goddamn lieutenant and you've been putting everyone at risk for months, you fucking idiot."

"You wanna hit me?" Kelly asks, almost goads. Part of him wanting it, feeling like he deserves it to feel Matt's anger and his fist against his face.

"A little bit, yeah." He looks angry enough for more than a little bit but just like that he deflates and it's worse. Because now he looks disappointed. "Why didn't you have the surgery?"

"Because I'm a coward, okay?" he says, feeling a surge of anger. "Do I need to remind you of what happened to Vargas? I knew that could be me if they decided my shoulder's not good enough and put me on disability and I just… I couldn't."

"So you did this instead?" Matt looks at the pills on the counter with a frown of concern. "This is dangerous stuff to be messing around with."

"Yeah, well. I'm done with that now. You can flush them down the toilet."

Casey shakes his head, eyes fixed on him with a resolute look. "You do it."

Which is fine with him if that's the proof Matt needs that Kelly means it. But when he watches pill after pill fall into the toilet bowl, Matt wordlessly handing him each pack, he finds maybe he needed it more.

After, when they're sitting down at the counter and they've finally taken their first draft of – now lukewarm – beer, he feels Matt's eyes on him for a long time before he speaks.

"You're not a coward, Kelly."

Kelly scoffs.

Matt continues. "You're an idiot sometimes, but I know you. And you're not a coward."

"You don't know me very well then," Kelly says bitterly and Matt shakes his head because sometimes he's as stubborn as Kelly. "I'm fucking scared, Casey! Of losing Shay. Of not being a firefighter. I'm scared of relationships and you and that I can't do this."

It's a relief to throw it all out there, more than he could've imagined. The pills, the fear, everything he's been holding onto so tight.

Meanwhile, Casey's gone completely still, eyes wide. Because Kelly mentioned the one thing they never talk about.

About them and that moment where everything could have been different, maybe. Before Renee. Before Hallie.

When they'd leaned into each other one fall night, easily, like they'd been heading for each other for months, and Kelly could feel Matt's lips brush against his mouth and still smell the fire on his skin. And then Andy had burst into the room with some tale about one of their fellow trainees screwing up an exercise. They'd jumped away from each other and drifted apart ever since until Kelly wound up at Firehouse 51 where Matt was. And all that time he could still feel that want, when he let himself, simmering underneath but neither of them ever acknowledging it. Until now. It's just one more thing that might fall apart but things haven't been exactly right between them for a long time so maybe it doesn't matter all that much.

"I always thought you didn't—" Matt shakes his head and takes a deep breath.

"First of all, we're not gonna lose Shay," he says, determined like he's got any say in this and Kelly wishes he did. "You don't even know yet if you're gonna lose your job. It would suck but, you know, you'll find something else. You could do it."

Kelly wants to explain that it never was much of a question of being able to but more about not wanting to but Matt forges ahead.

"And me?" Matt asks.

He gets up and steps into Kelly's space, so close that all he can feel is the warmth radiating off Matt's body.

"I'm not that scary," he says and puts his hands on Kelly's face. Matt moves forward as if in slow-motion, his eyes on Kelly's the whole time and then there's the soft brush of Matt's mouth against his. It takes Kelly a few seconds to process that this is really happening and then he falls into the kiss, into Matt. And it's everything he's wanted for so long and at the same time nothing like he imagined. Because Matt kisses almost gently but with a focused intent and every now and then he makes these low noises that thrill Kelly to the bone.

"See?" Matt says, voice breaking, when he pulls back enough for Kelly to see his tentative smile.

And no, he's terrifying. Which he must say out loud because Matt laughs and says: "So are you. But you know what they say, right? It's not brave if you're not scared."

Kelly groans but can't help but smile at Matt's grin and pulls him back again.

 

* * *

 

He's mourning Shay, together with everyone else at the funeral but even from this distance it's himself he can see lying in the coffin. At some point Shay curls up against him in her nightshirt, the way she does sometimes on the couch when they're having a TV marathon night.

"This is exciting, isn't it?" She practically bounces in her seat.

"Please don't die," he pleads, time and again.

He wakes up before he can understand her response.

It's still dark outside and Matt is leaning against his left side, snoring lightly while someone on TV drones on about kitchen knives. His right shoulder and arm are one big area of agony, urging him to move. He checks his phone to find a text message from Royce asking how his friend is. He doesn't even know how to answer that right now so he leaves it unanswered, then gets up as quietly as he can, drapes a blanket over Casey and slips upstairs for a warm shower.

He doesn't know how long he's been sitting on his bed, hunched over in pain when Matt walks in.

"Hey, are you all right?"

 

"What does it look like, Casey?" he snaps and regrets it right away. "Sorry. It's the pain."

Matt sits down next to him. "Try to relax, tensing up against it will only make the pain worse."

It seems impossible to do, it strangely reminds him of that panicked feeling the first time he walked into a dark smoke-filled building, until he feels Matt's fingers brushing his hair, giving him something to focus on.

His breathing evens out and after a while the pain recedes to something more manageable. They sit quietly for a while. He's a fool, he thinks, for having tried to put off the inevitable for months and making things worse along the way. And then Matt's touch changes from soothing to something different, the stroke of his fingers drifting along Kelly's neck, up again to trace the shell of his ear. Kelly sits there with his eyes closed, just feeling the touch until he remembers he can touch Matt now, is allowed to, and he turns his head to nose along Matt's cheek.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He pulls back a little, needing to see Matt's face.

He looks completely unguarded and pretty certain when he finally answers. "Yeah. You?"

"I'm sure. Not gonna be easy." He leaves the 'with me' unspoken.

"Could be worth it," Matt suggests, sounding hopeful.

And yeah, he feels it could be. He wants it to be. He thinks he can try to make it so and tries to put all that into the kiss, like a promise he can't put into words yet.

The second their tongues slip against each other everything changes. All the years of ignoring are falling away and he's left with nothing but an overwhelming need that has him climbing onto Matt's lap, frantically trying to touch him, feel him everywhere.

"Hey, slow down," Matt gasps when Kelly bites and sucks a path down his jaw to his throat but he groans and tugs Kelly's head back up hard for an equally eager and dirty kiss.

They grind into each other, gasping into each other's mouths when they both feel how hard they are. There are too many clothes in the way of what he wants so he tugs at Matt's shirt but he's hampered by Matt pulling at his. They groan in frustration and then they look at each other and they're laughing.

"You first," Kelly says after a moment and Matt lifts his arms obligingly and yes, finally. Kelly pushes him back onto the bed so he can taste every bit of skin he can reach, all the way down to the trail of coarse hair that disappears into Matt's jeans.

"Come on," Matt says, pulling at his shirt again. "Off off off."

He sits up and can't fight the smile at Matt lying half-naked underneath him, biting his lip as his eyes rove over Kelly when he takes off his shirt. He tosses it away and in an instant all the happiness and thoughts of getting naked vanish as pain lances through him, taking his breath away and leaving him doubled over, dimly aware of Matt cursing.

"Fuck," he swears against Matt's chest. "Gimme a minute."

"Has it been this bad all this time?" Matt asks as he traces his fingers along Kelly's back, carefully avoiding his right side.

"No," he manages. The pills took care of that before he could become familiar with this sort of pain.

It fades to a dull throbbing, quicker than it did before and he becomes fully aware of where his head is rested. It only takes a minute shift of his head for him to be able to scrape his teeth over the nipple near his mouth and Matt bucks underneath him, making a sound of surprise.

"You don't want to stop?" he asks and Kelly tries to convey exactly how he feels about that with a look and must succeed because Matt raises his hands.

"Okay, fine. But we're not doing it like this then. Come on. On your back."

"Bossy," Kelly says with a grin and moves up for a kiss.

"Yeah. Well…" And there's a flush of red creeping into Matt's face and ears and Kelly feels something warm and long-forgotten pull inside him.

He reluctantly gets off Casey and lies down on his back.

"Like this, Lieutenant Casey?"

"Yes, like that," Matt says as he straddles Kelly, holding his hands against the mattress. "Jerk," Matt adds, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

It turns out that his intention is to get them both naked as efficiently as possible while Kelly is not allowed to move his arm. It's a good plan and he manages to stick to it even through them slowly thrusting up against each other. But then Matt lines up their cocks and wraps his hand around them and Kelly refuses to get off without having touched Matt at all.

"Come on," he says on a groan, pushing up against Matt. "Let me touch you."

Matt lets go after a moment and when Kelly finally puts his hand on him he doesn't know whether to look down or at Matt's face, wide open and blissed out, gorgeous and _his_.

There's nothing of the desperate franticness they started out with but it's good, so incredibly good and over way too soon but he figures they have time.

They fall asleep, still tangled together and half on top of each other, and this time there are no strange dreams.

 

* * *

 

It takes forever before the nurse lets him into the room with a stern 'five minutes'.

Shay still looks like hell but she's awake and alert, smiling carefully against the bruises when she sees him and his heart feels lighter than it has for days.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"I can honestly say, like I've been hit by a truck," she grins and winces at the pain. "They say I'm gonna be okay though."

"I know. Expected to make a full recovery," he repeats the doctor's words, not able to keep the relief from his voice. "You had us worried there for a while."

"What about you?" She squeezes his hand. "I hear you've been talking to Dawson and the Chief."

He shrugs, grinning at her. "Had to do something while you were up here playing Sleeping Beauty."

He sobers quickly though. "We're looking into my options. It'll be okay, we'll figure something out." He doesn't want to bother her with all this now, she's still got more than enough on her own plate for a while yet.

"No more pills?" she asks carefully.

"Tried that. Apparently trying to go cold turkey is something for 'stubborn morons looking for more trouble'."

"Dawson?"

"Dawson. But she's been helping out with that, too. All above board, I promise. And I promise, no more lies."

"Good," she says when he meets her eyes.

The nurse comes in to tell him he has to go but there's one more thing he needs to say.

"I'm sorry. For… you know, for everything."

"You're forgiven." She smiles and he doesn't think he deserves it this easily but he can't help but smile back at her so widely it almost hurts.

She reaches out a hand to brush his cheek and it isn't until that moment he realizes he might be crying.

"Come here, you big dork," she says and he leans into her over the side-rail and tubes for the most awkward hug he's ever had. Possibly also the best.

 

THE END


End file.
